thoughts... dreams...

I met up with my future flatmate, Johannah yesterday (she is still lovely) and chatted over a delicious salad of prawns, avocado and mango *yum* in a trendy cafe type place on Marylebone High Street. We were talking about our expectations of our time in Oxford and thought that it may be interesting to write it all down beforehand and then at the end of the course look back and compare.

So what do I expect it to be?

Firstly, I expect there to be a lot of hard work. I expect to be intellectually stimulated and stretched - sometimes more than I think I can handle. I expect to have lots and lots of work to get through and very little time to do it in. I expect to read lots and write lots. I expect to work in teams, sometimes with people I wouldn't choose to work with, and sometimes on my own. I expect to be stumped by the numbers, bored by the IT courses and fascinated by the soft skills classes. But in the end, I expect to get through it, with a different attitude to some subjects and a new respect for some of the people I have worked with in the past.

What will make my time at Said a memorable one will be the people that I meet there. Perhaps the group that I do my new business development project with will have a genuinely good idea which is just begging to be realised. Or maybe the consultancy project undertaken in Hollywood will lead to an offer of employment by a company specialising in New Media which will change my life for ever. Or maybe a chance meeting at the dinner table at my college St. Hugh's will lead to an opportunity that I had never dreamed of.
Whatever happens, I expect my life to be changed irrevocably in the same way that travel stretches the mind and it isn't possible to go back to where you were before, education has the same effect. Bring it on!

And what of my home? I expect to get on well with my new flatmates. I expect Tim to lead us, Scott to be the party animal, Johannah to keep us healthy and me to maintain the peace. I expect to share punting trips and bottles of red wine, stories of our homes and help through the difficult times. I hope to make some friendships that last for the rest of my life, and to get invited to visit places that I've never been (New Zealand, Rochester (New York), San Francisco).

I expect to have a hard battle when it comes to maintaining a balance between a course of study which will want to take up all of my time and my faith which is the most important part of my life. It's the age old decision of which to do, what is important or what is urgent. I pray that God will help me with this dilemma and show me which choices to make. I expect a slightly different church experience at St. Ebbe's to St. Helen's as it is more of a local community church rather than a large networking church. I hope to make some new Christian friends who will encourage me during the tough times and who I will be there for when they need me. I want to be able to contribute to St. Ebbe's and be used by God however he wants during my time there.

There is so much more, I want to become better at my salsa dancing, get to know my friend Kat better, start up running again, figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life, career... decide where I'm going to live. Who knows? only God.